The Organization Project

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

I'm closing out 2016 with a resolution to try and maintain healthy habits in 2017. To that end, here's a little grid for anyone interested in the MIND Diet to make it easier to follow. You can print it out and check off all the healthy things you've eaten for the week:Mind Diet

Thursday, February 26, 2009

We're almost finished! Most of the decluttering is done and most of the work was actually done by my daughter. I was so surprised at some of the things she put in the give away pile. Then on Sunday, we moved the furniture around to make room for a desk and night stand. We will be shopping for those this weekend.

My daughter has been so excited about her room that all week she has put her dirty clothes in the laundry and made her bed (not exactly hospital corners and she likes to put the comforter crosswise, but I'll take it)! She's been spending lots more time in it, reading, playing and dancing. Her enthusiasm is a direct result of her having done so much of the work and decision making herself. Yes, I was there and supported her and helped her clean up, but she felt like it was her project. Did it take a long time? Yes. Was it occasionally frustrating and painful? Yes. Was I often tempted to do it for her quickly while she was at school? For sure. But, this payoff has definitely been worth the patience, and she's so proud of her accomplishment.

Once the desk and nightstand are added, we'll decide where to hang up the jewelry board and we're done. I think I'm pretty on track so far with one big project a month.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

That Martha, she's got some great looking projects. And she makes it look so easy. But, when I try to actually do one, I often find myself on a wild goose chase for some obscure craft product or spending more money on it than it would take to just buy the thing. Around Christmas time, I thought I'd make this cute snowman card for my godson. Alas, it was impossible to find white honeycomb paper anywhere. Not in craft stores, not on the web. I could only find yellow honeycomb paper, and no one wants to receive a yellow snowman.

I was going to make the jewelry board I saw on Real Simple for my daughter's room, which is very similar to a bulletin board I saw on our dear Martha's site. Both use Homasote as a base. Now, I don't need anything too big, and the projects shown were a reasonable size. However, Homasote is mostly used in construction to make walls, and I could only find it at Home Depot in one gigantic, whole wall size piece. On both Martha's and Real Simple's videos, the Homasote is already cut down. They don't show Martha wrestling with a wall size piece of Homasote, and I wasn't about to either. (FYI, it costs about $24.00.)

I decided a regular bulletin board would work just as well. I found a cute flower shaped one in pink, orange and yellow at our local Container Store on sale for $9.99 and the push pins were $4.99 for 100. I think it will do the trick for my daughter's jewelry and look cute, too.

So, I'm not going to get sucked in again. I'm going for the easy and obvious solution from now on, because I don't have Martha's minions or her sources. I did however, make her Roast Pork Loin recipe tonight and it was delicious.

Monday, February 16, 2009

We were slowly chipping away at the books in my daughter's room, each discard an agonizing decision for her, when her school had a book sale and she came home with six books. And then, an author visited and she got another book. We discussed (for what seemed to me like the millionth time) how there's only so much space, and to make room for new books she had to give up some of her old books. Suddenly today, it was like the light went on. She went up to her room, sat in front of her book shelves, and within about an hour, she filled up four shopping bags with books. As she brought them out she said to me, "These are all books that are too young for me or that I've never really been interested in reading. Some I've had since I was born! Now I can put my new books on my shelf and there's even room for more." By George I think she's got it!

I have to admit there were a few in the pile that were a little sentimental to me, but there was no way I was going to discourage her in any way. So, I put them all in the shopping bags and tomorrow we will take them over to the library to donate to the book sale. She loves our local library and its annual book sale, so it'll be great for her to help out in a direct way.

Here's hoping (but not assuming) that she can apply the same lesson to the toys.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

My goal for this year has been to take on one room at a time, one project at a time and really focus my energy on getting that room together. But since I'm working together with my daughter on her room, and she is in school most of the day, yesterday I decided to take on a small project that's been bothering me in my dining room.

I have a lovely little cupboard that overflowed with stationary and cards and had other miscellaneous junk on top. Sort, sort, sort, out went cards with no matching envelopes, boxes of stationary went into the give away pile (who needs that much paper when most correspondence is done by email?). I kept a selection of greeting cards, a box of thank you notes and a some blank cards for teacher and miscellaneous notes. Greeting cards went into an acordian file. I also decided that the stationary didn't belong in the dining room and to use the cupboard for things that actually get used in the dining room.

With all the paper significantly pared down, I could put it closer to where I use it... in another cupboard that needs to be sorted out. Funny how that works. But, I resisted the urge to immediately start sorting out that one, and went back to my original project. I put trivets, candlesticks, candles and the trivia games we play at dinner in the dining room cupboard. Much more logical and it looks so much better.

Before:

After:

Total time: 1 hourTotal cost: $0.00

Now it's Saturday, the kids have this week off for February vacation, so it's back to focusing on my daughter's room.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I just love to watch those TV shows where they organize and re-decorate a whole house in a weekend. It's total fantasy - houseporn, if you will. And I have rationally set my goal as one year to get our house working efficiently for us. But still, a girl can dream, right?

Okay, I was not realistic about what we were going to get done this weekend. It turned out to be a much busier weekend than I expected, but I did learn how to pleat Chinese dumplings from the most adorable Chinese grandmother. She can do it in one motion, I'll need to do about a thousand more to get to that level, but I definitely improved and I don't need that little plastic dumpling maker anymore. Ha! another thing to purge.

We did manage to sort through all of my daughter's hair do-dads and jewelry. She had everything in an assortment of little jewelry boxes, one bigger jewelry box, and some little clear plastic totes. All those pony tail holders, barrettes, head bands, and scrunchies are now neatly stowed on the back of her closet door in a clear plastic jewelry holder. It is not quite as efficient as I would have liked, but it's working pretty well.

As for the jewelry, all the necklaces got terribly tangled in the jewelry boxes. After untangling everything and laying it all out, I did a little web surfing and found this great idea at Real Simple, Real Life. Using a fabric covered bulletin board, we can hang it all up. It's easy to see, easy to use and saves space on the flat surfaces and in the drawers. We'll cover the board with some fabric from my fabric stash (um, yeah, I'll be talking about that little problem in another project). Hey, a little project we can do together, that uses up some fabric and will make my little miss's life a little neater!

We made significant progress and celebrated Chinese New Year. I call that a successful weekend.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

My daughter and I are very s..l..o..w..l..y decluttering her room. We got rid of a bag of books, some old dress-up costumes, a few more bits and bobs. It is very hard for her, but I keep painting the picture of a nice room with desk and a little reading nook, and she's beginning to come around more. I've told her as soon as we get her room decluttered and cleaned up, we will shop for a desk.

The Animal Bag came and we fit almost all her stuffed animals in there. In fact, though I hate to admit it, she could probably fit more in there. The only ones that didn't go in were a few musical ones that were hard and a unicorn that had a plastic horn, not a good thing to sit on. And, she absolutely loves it! The zippers and netting seem very sturdy, so I'm think it will hold up well.

Her school this week had a book sale fund raiser for a sister school in Uganda, and she came home with six more books. This was a good time to have the "if you want to bring home new books, you have to get rid of some old books" discussion, though I was proud that she donated an extra dollar to the cause. We're still working on the less stuff concept.